Aftermarket

Comdata Must Share Trendar Technology

October 6, 1999
• by Staff

Ceridian Corp. will license its processing system for truckers' commercial credit cards in order to settle accusations it violated anti-trust laws.

Ceridian's subsidiary, Comdata, is the largest provider of commercial credit cards used by drivers to buy fuel and other goods at truckstops. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Comdata's acquisitions of NTS Corp. in 1998 and Trendar Corp. in 1995 allowed the company to prevent competitors from entering the market or expanding their operations. NTS was Comdata's chief rival at the time it was purchased. Trendar operates the market's dominant point-of-sale processing system. As part of the settlement, Ceridian must grant other credit-card issuers full access to the Trendar system, the FTC said. Likewise, Comdata said its Comchek card will be accepted on competing transaction processing systems.Ceridian says the licensing of its systems and cards to competitors has already been happening, and that the FTC ruling formally mandates the existing business practice.

Meritor has updated MeritorPartsXpress.com to improve search functionality for the company’s offering of 100,000 aftermarket products. The website also offers new self-service tools to help customers in North America.

In a perfect world, trucks would never break down. In the real world even the best-made trucks need to come in for service. When that happens, fleet managers want service to be completed quickly and efficiently.

Navistar has launched the Navistar Service Essentials program, a partnership aimed at helping qualified vocational-technical schools “prepare the next generation of truck and bus technicians,” according to the OEM.

Times are good everywhere in trucking and Chris Baer, president and CEO of Vipar Heavy Duty, confirmed that applies to the aftermarket segment as well in his remarks at the company’s annual conference.